I managed a 28:11 (7:02 pace). This brings my best pace in NYRR’s books down a hefty 12 seconds per mile. Perhaps more important, I know I could have broken 28:00 had I not gotten caught in the 2nd corral logjam for the first half mile, during which I was trapped at 7:27 pace. After that, things opened and I was averaging 6:58.

Other good news:

I clocked 4.02 in distance, which means I did a better job hitting the tangents than usual (either that or the course was short).

I maintained effort throughout and only really started to hurt the last quarter mile; this tells me I did a decent job of pacing myself. Perhaps I should have been hurting a little earlier, now that I look back.

I got 5th in my AG, and hit just under 73%, which is very good historically for me, especially at the start of a season. I’m also scraping the top end (I turn 45 in less than two months), so I’m “old” for this AG group as it is.

It was windy, especially heading up to and over the 102nd Street Transverse, which I figure I can also credit for taking a few seconds away from me.

So I’m within spitting distance of my sub-7:00 blue bib. I’ve registered for the NYRR 8000 in five weeks, so I can take another crack at it.

Some things of note: I did speedwork on Thursday morning, then ran just two slow runs under 5 miles on Friday and Saturday. I wonder if that (and two glasses of wine last night) helped me today.

As I wrote to Coach Kevin, it is so nice to not be in a completely foul mood after a race.

Now to go for another run and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening ignoring the Super Bowl.

Ah, the logistics of a NYRR race, esp. in the shorter ones where you burn so much energy in the early going just being pissed off. Well done. I was oblivious to the wind yesterday until I turned a corner and found it slapping me upside the face.

A good showing, especially when you’re on the upper-reaches of an age-group.